Andy Sjostrom
11-01-2002, 09:06 AM
<a href="http://www.allnetdevices.com/wireless/news/2002/10/31/new_protection.html">http://www.allnetdevices.com/wireless/news/2002/10/31/new_protection.html</a><br /><br />Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) is a new solution aimed at improving security in wireless networks. It's the non-profit Wi-Fi Alliance, the "consortium behind interoperability standards and testing for 802-11 based networks", that has deviced this solution as a replacement of the built-in WEP standard.<br /><br />"Why not wait for 802.11i? According to Dennis Eaton, the chairman of the Wi-Fi Alliance, "[IEEE] Task Group I doing 802.11i is still on a path to be complete about this time next year with a fully ratified standard, but that's a little too long. We had to do something sooner." That something sooner is WPA, which, according to Eaton, will work with the majority of 802.11-based products out today once they've gone through a firmware/software upgrade. WPA is forward compatible with 802.11i. By the time 11i is ratified around September of next year, expect to see a WPA version 2.0 with full 802.11i support. Eventually, the Alliance expects to require Wi-Fi products to shop with WPA turned on as a default."